Have you heard of EdCanvas yet? It is a new curating tool for pulling together in one place a set of videos, documents, handouts, photos and websites, all in one space. The canvas can be embedded on a website or a wiki page, and you can add colors, or organize the template of materials in different configurations for some variety. What is more, if you have an account on Edmodo, Edcanvas is linked, so the canvases you create can be embedded and sent to specific classes or groups in Edmodo - a very nice feature!
The advantage of curating the content you want to use all in one space is that a teacher can assemble a set of materials for students so they will not get lost or side tracked so easily. They also won't lose time looking for content you want them to peruse. In my classes of 36 students, that is a very helpful way to save time, energy, and sanity, while maximizing the opportunities for my students to learn to stay on task. Hum... sound familiar to you?
Mr. John Cunningham (in Dublin, Ireland) shared a canvas he created on Edmodo this morning about Jacques Brel. I was able to import a copy of his canvas into my own EdCanvas library because John was willing to share his canvas with others. I then added a few more things of my own to adapt it to my students' needs. Here is the link to my edited version of John's canvas:
EdCanvas about Jacques Brel
If you are interested in the FlipClass concept, this would be a very useful tool to learn to use. You could prepare a whole assignment with materials and activities for your students, embed the canvas on Edmodo or a website, and then assign the work to the students as homework. Obviously, you could do the same activity in class as well. If you use Google apps for education, you might consider creating a form to embed on a website or a wiki page along with your canvas to collect the students' work. We can go paperless! Imagine no lost papers! Edcanvas is free, by the way, so jump on in and try it out for yourself!
I also created a canvas on the Common Core State Standards recently to use in professional development of the staff at my school. Here is the link in case you would like to see another example:
An Introduction to the Common Core State Standards for Teachers
Like what you see? Have some ideas of how you might use this curation tool? Share your ideas in the reply box below! I would love to hear from you!
Cheers,
Don